Chapter 17

Parades, part 3

Wednesday

St Charles Street

New Orleans

5:30 PM

Dennis was enjoying himself, sitting his folding chair sipping beer, ogling young women; as the sun slowly began to set. Out of nowhere the rest of the gang were running up towards where he was sitting talking over each other, interrupting his buzz.

"This is bullshit." said Charlie, as he's chewing on baby carrots from a plastic bag, and then suddenly bites into a raw small potato he picked up from the ground.

"Come on back me up on this Dennis, my vegetables count for like at least a dozen beads" he continued

"What, no. The bet what whoever catches the most beads." said Dee, in a highly pitched, highly agitated voice; pulling out her stash of the prettiest beads one can catch.

"Ok, well, we still beat you even just counting the beads." said Mac, as he pulled up a ton of small beads he caught.

"What, no, you call those beads." said Dee

Frank meanwhile proudly displays the beads he caught with an annoying giant smile on his face, not even close to the number the rest of the gang caught; and then proudly shows off the pictures of boobs he took on his phone; not even caring about the bet at this point.

"Well, I mean technically, its whoever has the highest quantity of beads even though Dee's are better." said Charlie

"Oh, enough. God damnit" it yelled Dennis, annoyed as all eyes where on him to make the judgment call, as a couple of girls caught more beads and put them into his binder.

"Wait, what. Thats bullshit." yelled Dee. "She's doing all the work. Thats clearly cheating."

"Yeah, I call shenanigans. That is a technical foul, you're outta here." said Charlie, in one of his annoying fake accents, some cross between a fake Cajun and the accent he did when reffing the community service game.

"Yeah, you should totally be disqualified." said Mac, annoyed and intense, as the gang reverted back to arguing who won the bet; further annoying Dennis

"God damnit. Everyone STOP. You know what, fine. Fine, lets just call it a tie." said Dennis pointing to his stash of beads, clearly larger than all of their catches combined.

"You know what, fine. Whatever. Can we just enjoy ourselves for one day without pointless arguing." said Dennis

"Ok, yeah, I can go with that." said Mac

"But we all can still try to catch as much beads as possible just for fun." asked Charlie

"Ok, fine. You and Mac do your thing where you steal unattended beads. Dee, you flash your mosquitoes bites you call breast. Frank, you do, whatever it is that you do." said Dennis

"I tell women that I am dying from AIDS so they feel bad for me and flash their breast at me." interrupted Frank, proudly

"Whatever, meanwhile I will hang out with my frat half-bros and enjoy the parade." said Dennis, as Mac and Charlie were chatting with several drunk 18-year-old college guys, trying to set up a convoy to most efficiently move stolen (or legitimately caught) beads across the parade route.

"Guys, just an FYI, in case I don't come back for you and you're worried about me, its cause I am having sex with one of the broads I scammed." said Frank, frankly

"Well, shouldn't you like be telling them that you like have cancer instead of AIDS. I mean I am just saying." said Charlie

"Yeah, dude, thats a good point." said Mac.

"Hey, I am getting kind of hungry" said Dee

Charlie jammed several baby carrots into the rest of the raw potato he caught, then unwrapped a moonpie; and spread it on the potato and finally tore a raw cabbage leaf and wrapped the whole thing around the potato; and took a bite into it.

"Well, I guess I can trade some of my cabbages for beads." said Charlie

"Um, no thanks." said Dee, as she decided to stick around Dennis and the rest of the older guys in the fraternity.

Mac and Charlie walked away, while explaining their convoluted plot to several drunk 18-year-old frat guys more interested in flirting with young girls.

"Ok, so we trade beads for cabbages on these blocks on that side of the street because they have like an excess of beads, and then we trade back cabbages for beads because they have a shortage of beads over here. Also, whatever you find lying around unattended is fair game if you call dibs. Guys, we need you to stick to your zone, and pass it on to the next guy. Your VIG is 25%" said Charlie, pretending he's a college football coach, showing them his poorly drawn map on a brown napkin paper

"Yo dawg that is so dope." said one of the young guys, excited at the chance to participate in wacky college fraternity shenanigan. The rest of the guys started following Charlie and Mac's instructions, poorly, getting constantly distracted with young women in the area.

Meanwhile, Dee and Dennis where hanging out as the next marching band marched by.

"Oh my God. I totally should be in that. I would make an awesome actress." said Dee

"What, Dee, no. You're too old. No one is going to believe that you're still in hi-" said Dennis, as Dee got annoyed by what she perceived to be another insult

"Oh yeah, I'll show him." thought Dee

"Yoo hoo. Hey boys." said Dee, as she took off her bra in the middle of the street

The frat guys, and several people around, spontaneously drew their attention to her. Some started chanting "tit-ies, tit-ies, tit-ies", some gave her whatever beads they had on them.

"God damn it Dee." said Dennis, both annoyed and embarrassed, and also slightly jealous of the attention she was getting from his bros.

Several of the guys grabbed a handful of beads out of Dennis's pile to give to Dee.

"Come on, God damnit it. Those are my beads." said Dennis annoyed, while everyone was ignoring him.

"Oh come on guys. Bros before hoes. You can do a lot better than those mosquito bites." continued Dennis, annoyed that his 'buddies' had 'betrayed' him as they showered Dee with attention and beads.

Dee gave Dennis an evil in-your-face smirk as she looked back at him.

"Oh come on. God damnit it Dee, you're embarrassing me. And you're embarrassing yourself. I mean this is what you're willing to do to get young guy's attention, I mean quite frankly, its beyond pathetic Dee." said Dennis, while everyone just ignored him. Dennis just kept on getting more agitated the most people ignored him and the more his bead supply dwindled as Dee was now getting the lion's share of it.

"HEY. HEY. Stop this right now." yelled an a angry cop, staring Dee down coldly, then looked around the scene. A couple of young guys backed away slowly trying to melt into the crowd to avoid getting busted for under-aged drinking.

Dee looked around. The fraternity guys all had a "oh snap" looks on their faces. Several families with children stared at her. The cop stared her down coldly. Dennis had a satisfied smirk grin on him.

"All right party's over. Any further commotion from any of yall, and I am making arrests for disorderly conduct." said the cop, annoyed.

"You, young lady, come this way." said the cop, as he ordered her to sit on the curb away from the crowd.

"Any more bullshit out of you and I am taking you in." said the cop, as he wrote her a misdemeanor ticket and took down her information and ordered her to sit on the curb for the rest of the parade, and walked off; too lazy to bother making an arrest and dealing with the paperwork after

The frat guys and Dennis all looked at each other awkwardly.

"Well, that was that I guess. We have like 5 floats left." said a frat bro

"Yeah man, this was pretty cool. I swear man, you guys know how to party. I used to think that New Orleans was nothing but Mardi Gras. But you guys can even make St Patrick's Day interesting. I swear, short of riding on those of those floats, I can't think of anything better than going to one of your parades." said Dennis

"Oh, we can totally do that." said the bro

"What." asked Dennis

"Yeah man, I know people. Its like $150 a person. I can totally hook you up." said the Frat guy

"Oh wow, thats awesome" said Dennis

"Yeah man, the guy I know is riding Sunday down in Metairie. They can still fit in two more people. I mean you won't fit your whole gang, but they can still come to our after-party which is pretty tight ." said the bro.

"Well, if we're being honest, I only need one. I have my doubts if the rest of my gang would appreciate the experience." said Dennis, throwing the rest of his gang under the bus.

Their chatter continued for another 20 minutes or so as the last float rolled past them, and they exchanged information. Charlie's group of drunk 18 year-old guys, some not even part of the frat, came back with a few bags of catches / steals. Charlie and Mac got excessively excited at the sight of the cleanup truck trailing the parade, and started following it, taking video's and selfies. Dee was finally relieved from her punishment as the cop came back and allowed her to leave.

Eventually, the gang met up and made their way back to the frat house.

"Hey guys, I am going to stick around with my frat guys and spend the night. Knock yourselves out." said Dennis, as he handled Dee the keys

"Come on Dennis, don't you want to bring the party back to our place. I can cook an awesome meal with all the vegetables me and Charlie caught. Hey, who wants to party back at our place" said Mac, as most of the frat guys ignore him

"Thanks for the offer, but I'll think I'll party with these guys." said Dennis, as he flirted with several young women in the frat

"Ok, well, lets get back I guess." said Dee, with low energy

Meanwhile, several young drunk 18-20 year-olds, 75% male, who got kicked out from the frat party for not being members and being annoying, pleaded to get in.

"Yo, over here, who wants to party with us at our place" yelled Charlie as Mac added "I am an awesome cook." trying to get the group's attention.

"Come on it" said Dee, flirtatiously as some of the guys packed into her car while the rest got in with Mac and Charlie.